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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: What is obvious?; Context sensitive sidebars.
From:       Sven Burmeister <sven.burmeister () gmx ! net>
Date:       2005-03-12 18:28:52
Message-ID: 200503121928.52717.sven.burmeister () gmx ! net
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Hi!

Am Samstag, 12. März 2005 16:31 schrieb Aaron J. Seigo:
> we have a policy of our UIs working on 800x600. there are a lot of people
> out there with 1024x768 and less, ergo the policy.

That is a valid point and good policy, yet becoming less relevant for the 
future and as one can turn it off anyway I think this is something to think 
about but a valid reason dismiss improvements of the growing number of people 
having >=1024x768.

> > And as one could
> > turn the sidebar off anyway I do not see your point.
>
> the point was that it doesn't work on low resolutions. not that people are
> forced to use them, but that it's a solution (which would require a LOT of
> effort to implement) that wouldn't be globally useful.

I understand that it takes a lot of effort, yet the resolution is not the 
reason, is it?

> the XP sidebar is a file manager thing. this is very different concept than
> a global context sidebar. i think such things make lots of sense for file
> managers. i just don't see the applicability to a mail application. if you
> could help explain that, that would help things along.

I agree that it is most useful for a file-manager, Longhorn shows some more 
functionality and has it on the desktop, but as I did not use it yet I cannot 
comment on its (dis-)advantages.
For mail: When I am working in an office and get an email from a customer it 
would be very helpful, if I had the person's contact details outlined next to 
the message in order to call back/chat... Further the sidebar could provide 
easy access to documents related to that person/subject, i.e. faxes if one 
has unified messaging, past emails, notes concerning that dubject/person. 
Upcoming appointments with that person might also be helpful
For non-office use I think that it helps people if there is some extra space 
to describe the functionality, actually this is already possible, if you 
place the toolbar at the side and enable icons+text. Also it would give space 
to have things like sorting explained. In another thread somebody mentianed 
that his colleagues do not get the sorting by clicking on the column-header 
and are upset if they click it by mistake and do not know how to get it back, 
although they have been told many times. These users are all over the place 
and need written out functionality.

> note that it's a lot less development effort to make a sidebar for a
> specific type of app than one for every type of app, and so that must be
> ballanced against the utility of it.

Oh, I thought it would be the other way around. The reason why I thought it 
would be better not to put it into the applications core was that this would 
mean that the code has to be maintained by the developers responsible for 
lets say kmail. If it was external and would simply communicate via a 
standardised method such as dcop others could take care of the extras and not 
bothering kmail developers. Firefox and Thunderbird have that 
extensions-method which is similar. Allow developers to provide 
extra-features that become part of the app without having to be maintained by 
the app's developers. Is it not possible to have the sidebar and the 
apllication it is attached to communicate via dcop and thereby avoiding the 
need to put it into the application itself? This way, if for examplea company 
needs some extension for kmail, it can develop it without having to introduce 
anything into kmail's code.

> > As you did not find a single positive thing in the idea I somehow do not
> > know what to think,
>
> i'm not here to be the chearleader, i'm here to (hopefully) encourage
> critical thought and engage in a creative process.

Absolutely!

> creating software isn't simply throwing random first draft ideas at
> developers who then code them and slap into CVS. or at least it shouldn't
> be. new interface concepts should be thoroughly reviewed and considered.
> it's a time intensive effort to create these things, and our users (which
> includes us too =) are impacted enormously by our decisions here.

That's why I try to get constructive feedback. The problem however is that I 
cannot reach those users who would benefit most from it.

> this is specific to the konqueror sidebar, yes. i don't think this is a
> problem shared globally amongst applications, however. we also just
> recently discussed how much the konqueror sidebar could use improving.
> perhaps you could start by creating a set of mockups showing what an
> improved _konqueror_ sidebar would look like.

I will do so. I did not mean to force all applications to have a 
context-sidebar, yet give the possibility to attach one if sensible.

> i just don't think that context sidebars really extend very naturally to
> many applications. it's useful in a file manager, it's cool in amaroK...
> but what would appear in a kmail context sidebar that would improve the
> user experience?

See above.

Thanks for the insights!

Sven
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